A history of Yellow desklights
by Freddie Q
Summary: Fiction by words. Bell and Freddie were never destined to be together, but they kept ignoring it.
1. 001 - 050

A history of Yellow desklights, Fiction by words

001. Beginnings.

When he meets her for the first time, she is very drunk and he pretends to be sober. Still, she manages to get his tie straight while he doesn't.

002. Middles.

It is hard to find the middle between working too little and working too much for the both of them. Once, her mother said that they only found that kind of balance when they were together, and his mother laughed in agreement.

003. Ends.

He never liked ends. He liked beginnings. When he leaves for America, he thinks it might be one of those endings he'll regret.

004. Insides.

When he says she has beautiful insides, she understands him completely wrong and starts laughing uncontrollably. He isn't sure whether he has the heart to tell her meant her different personalities, because he's sure her liver is beautiful, too.

005. Outsides.

She says outside should be plural because one can't compare the city with the countryside. When in the back of the car, Freddie almost agrees. He doesn't tell her because she is talking to Hector, and he makes her laugh louder than his comment would.

006. Hours.

He is standing beneath her window. The stone he threw cracked the glass. She asks him what he's doing and he says he hasn't seen her for 13 hours and he can't take it anymore.

It is only four hours later he tells her his mother died.

007. Days.

There are days Freddie Lyon is insufferable, but somehow those tend to be the days he is most brilliant.

008. Weeks.

She has had the affair for weeks and he has known it for weeks. She knows he knows from the way he looks at her, and he knows she knows from the way she ignores that look.

009. Months.

He is abroad for months. He marries Camille without a second thought. Perhaps he does it cause her hair is long when they meet, but sometimes she resembles Bell so much he asks her to cut it. She does.

010. Years.

They have known each other for years. Perhaps that's why it hurts when Bell tells Hector in her whiney voice how no one ever wrote her a romantic poem.

011. Red.

He likes wearing red ties because sometimes he imagines her pulling him closer by it, and red suits her tone of skin so well.

012. Orange.

Bell keeps saying orange is the rainbow's top colour, and one day Freddie takes her outside into the rain to prove it's not. They are soaked when they return, but he's earned his Bill Haley record.

013. Yellow.

He buys her a desk light and explains her why. Years later, she forgets it, and he hopes she does because she knows he will follow her with it.

014. Green.

He would have liked his eyes to be green because it's her favourite colour. Sadly, they are not - and Hectors are. Once more, he repeats he hates privileged men.

015. Blue.

She wears blue dresses all the time because her banker said he liked it. Freddie toys with the idea telling her he likes purple better, just to see what she does.

016. Purple.

When they go out for drinks she is wearing a purple dress of which he knows she didn't have it before. It makes him smile.

017. Brown.

His hair is brown. His mother's hair was brown as well, but it was turning grey steadily. When she died, the first thing he asked himself was whether her hair would keep its colour now.

018. Black.

He never wears black. He wears grey, or blue, or brown. Even attending his mother's funeral he chose for a dark brown vest. Bell had smiled, knowing the woman had hated it, too.

019. White.

When he is choking on his own blood, Bell only wishes his shirt was still as flawlessly white as he always tried to keep it.

020. Colourless.

In the hospital, the light is so dim he seems transparent. He has never been colourless before, and Bell can't keep herself together.

021. Friends.

She knows Lix and Freddie are friends, and she knows Freddie sees Lix when Bell has made him very sad. When she sees the hickey on his collarbone, there is a slight pang of guilt.

022. Enemies.

Sometimes she fantasizes about what it would be like if Freddie hadn't chosen Hector as his sworn enemy. Then, she remembers Camille, and suddenly she understands.

023. Lovers.

Freddie has always been in love with her, but Freddie loves in a very strange way. For a long time, she thought he loved the wrong way, but eventually found the opposite was true.

024. Family.

Ruth was like his little sister, and Bell doesn't even call when she has died in his arms. He leaves three messages on his phone, on the last one he's crying.

025. Strangers.

She simply doesn't want to hear him say the word estranged, but she knows that is what they are right now.

026. Teammates.

They used to play croquet, but he sucked at it. Hector takes her to play it and turns out to be a natural, but Bell things it was more fun to be horrible together.

027. Parents.

Freddie's parents were very lovely parents. Perhaps, they were even more of Bell's parents than her own were.

028. Children.

She once asks him how he'd call their children if they had a boy and a girl, and he asks whether she'd be okay with naming the girl after his mother. It was the only moment she ever wished to be pregnant.

029. Birth.

When she thinks of Camille becoming pregnant, Bell has to cry. When she sees Freddie, bloody and battered, she thinks 'at least he won't be someone else's, now' - and feels horrible.

030. Death.

The beep is long and steady. His eyes are still open and Bell realizes he never shut them for anything before.

031. Sunrise.

He once films a sunrise just for her, but turns shy and tells her the film blew. She finds it after everything passed and when she plays it she has to repeat it, because she can't believe he is truly screaming 'I love you'.

032. Sunset.

She visits the beach and watches the sunset. Drawing in the sand, she realizes it's no fun without him and she spends her night in the hospital.

033. Too Much.

"Too much?" he asks her, showing off his dark blue suit with fitting bowtie. She straightens it, and thinks perhaps a little if she wants to contain herself.

034. Not Enough.

He says they are possible. The next time she sees him he can't say anything at all and she screams at him it wasn't enough. Not yet.

035. Sixth Sense.

He has a sixth sense for when she's sad. He pops up in front of her door with steak and wine, makes her eat and tucks her in. Sometimes he falls asleep in the chair next to her bed and she wakes up to his snoring.

036. Smell.

She is so used to his smell she almost doesn't notice it, but in the hospital it is so clearly absent it almost suffocates her.

037. Sound.

She knows he hates startling noises and loud sounds, but he visits the Christmas fireworks with her every year, anyway.

038. Touch.

He likes the touch of her hands in his hair most of all, and sometimes she ruffles it just to hear his content sigh.

039. Taste.

He has absolutely no taste, she thinks. It's an argument they often have, since their idea of fashion differs - and so does their idea of being right.

040. Sight.

When she is in sight he starts running, and instead of kissing her he lifts her up. It just isn't worth it if she doesn't feel the same.

041. Shapes.

When he is almost dead, his mouth shapes a word she doesn't hear, but understands anyway. She has never cried over the word 'Moneypenny' before.

042. Triangle.

Hector, Bell and Freddie make a strange triangle of love and hate. To be honest, he was more fond of the straight line between the latter.

043. Square.

The square is not a really practical spot to broadcast, but he does it anyway, and his voice is so beautiful it's perfectly audible, Bell thinks.

044. Circle.

He called it the circle of life. Bell calls it death. He is death, and he won't be back (even though she might have taken in the stray cat that sat on her balcony).

045. Moon.

She is the moon, he says, and she doesn't understand until she accidentally finds a poem that he wrote. The moon, loved by the sun who can't reach her.

046. Star.

There is only one star in the sky when she watches that night. She pouts and he puts his chin on her shoulder, gazing up with her until they find more.

047. Heart.

He puts his hand on her heart to feel it beating. She squirms under the touch and it is only than he realizes she thinks of her breasts before her heart, and that this is perhaps their grandest difference.

048. Diamond.

He's too poor to buy her a diamond and he is seething when Hector does, because he had been saving up for months and the man beat him by just one more week of salary.

049. Club.

Her mother called them the club of two, and Bell can't help but wonder why she threw Freddie out of his own safehouse.

050. Spade.

He loves gardening, and he still has a little patch of soil at the Elms' mansion where he grows roses for Bell that he never gives her.


	2. 051 - 070

051. Fireflies.

When they are about 18, she has this ridiculous idea that you can use fireflies as reading light when you keep them in a jar. Freddie says they'll die, but catches them for her anyway - and cries when they appear to have suffocated.

052. Pills.

Freddie never tried taking his own life because she's always been there, but when Hector appears he eyes his pills just a little to often.

053. Endless night.

There are no endless nights, not even the one she sleeps with her head in his lap because she fell into slumber while arguing with him.

054. Crawl.

In his drunken state, he just manages to crawl up the stairs towards her apartment, but has to sleep outside because she doesn't hear the bell ring over the sound of Hector's voice.

055. Invisible.

Bel tells him he whines when he tells her she behaves as though he is invisible, and doesn't apologize when she passes him to run to the anchorman.

056. Wealth.

Ruth knew wealth in money, but Freddie taught her brotherly affection can create something that endures much longer - and so she tries to think of him while they kill her.

057. Power.

Freddie hates power because it were men with power that were responsible for his mother's death. He hates it so much he doesn't understand there is a good sort of power, too.

058. Desolate.

Freddie is a desolate man in a crowded society, and she doesn't understand how everyone always seems to keep a distance from him.

059. Tissues.

When her first real boyfriend breaks up with her, he brings her tissues and cake. Chocolate cake. She realizes only the next morning Freddie hates chocolate, but knows she loves it.

060. Varnish.

He says he only paints when the walls need a new colour, but sometimes his clothes smell like varnish and he has little spots of paint between his fingers (all while his room remains the same dull brown).

061. Careful.

One time, he breaks his leg when they are out in the field, and she is so careful in handling him he thinks he might break something once more.

062. Dirty.

One time, he turns up at her home in triumph, covered in mud and filth. He has never been so dirty, but happy ever before - and he only tells it's because he managed to save his rosebush from the passing storm when she has put him in bath and scrubbed him clean.

063. Circus.

He doesn't take her to the circus because he doesn't like that. Later, he thinks God punishes him for being selfish because her next boyfriend does.

064. Engagement.

He ponders for a long while whether to tell her of his engagement to Camille, but he does not because he is sure it will make him doubt.

065. Jail.

One time, they lock him up for pestering an officer and Bel only hears someone has to bail him out days later, because his father forgot him.

066. Barren.

Months after the day his shirt stopped being flawlessly white, she visits his rosebush and finds it barren. It feels like she has let his love gone to waste, too.

067. Lipstick.

He knows it is Bel's lipstick behind Hector's ear because it's the colour he told her not to wear.

068. Shirt.

When he has left for America, he knows he did so because he was angry with her. She cries in the shirt he left, and smudges it with her make up on purpose so he won't ask it back.

069. Shortbread.

Freddie loves shortbread but hates chocolate. She knows that is because his mother made shortbread for him when he was a kid and he never appreciated it before she died.

070. Groceries.

He loves cooking but he always forgets which groceries he has in store. One night, Bel finds a chocolate bar and a recipe for bonbons with her name scribbled in the corner.


End file.
